


Yesterday, upon the stair

by Dienda



Category: True Detective
Genre: Fluff and Crack, Gen, Ghost!Rust, Halloween Challenge, ghost au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-01
Updated: 2014-11-01
Packaged: 2018-02-23 10:51:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2544881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dienda/pseuds/Dienda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Maggie kicks him out, Marty rents an apartment only to find out he’s not exactly alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Yesterday, upon the stair

 

 

The first night in his new apartment Marty dragged his suitcases through the door, glared at the bare white rooms and got blind drunk on cheap whiskey.

He didn’t notice anything strange with the place.

 

*

He bought some furniture: a couch, a TV, a proper bed. It did something to break the monotony of white walls, white floors, and white shutters.

 

*

At first, Marty thought he was imagining things. Lights that were on when he’d turned them off, odd noises, shit moving around the house. He hated the place so much ―it was like the tangible proof that his marriage was beyond saving― he thought his mind was making up stuff to find an excuse to go back to the hotel.

 

*

Then there was the cigarette smell. Day and night, windows open or closed; the stink appeared out of nowhere and left the same way.

 

*

There was a box with books and two ugly lawn chairs in the front closet, probably left by a previous tenant. Some nights Marty came home to find them in the middle of the living room.

He thought about calling the landlord but something told him he would look like an idiot.

*

 

Marty saw the man one Tuesday morning. He came downstairs to start the coffeemaker and found some guy standing in front of the wall, staring at it. He’d locked the door the previous night but figured some tweaker ―judging by the dopey expression and the wall gazing going on― had found his way in during a trip.

“Hey, shithead,” he snapped, ready to pounce on the guy at the slightest movement.

The man turned to him and vanished into thin air.

 

 

*

Marty tossed a bunch of clothes into a duffel and went back to the hotel. He considered leaving the apartment, lease be damned, but managed to convince himself to dig some more into it before turning tail.

 

*

“Rustin Spencer Cohle” said Marty as he entered the apartment. After two days digging around and making phone calls he'd finally found his ghost’s identity. The photo on the file was the same empty face he’d seen that morning. “34. Texan. Cop. Overdose.”

The man appeared in the middle of the living room, eyes wide like a cornered animal.

Marty felt his stomach drop but kept talking.

“The files are sealed but you’d been transferred to State CID, were supposed to report to duty―” he searched the date in the report he’d photocopied at the station. “October, 1994.” He frowned at the paper; that was around the time his old partner had retired. Quesada had told him there’d be a new recruit coming soon but the guy never showed up; Marty was still working on his own, helping whoever asked for an extra hand. “You could’ve been my partner.”

When he looked up the ghost had vanished.

 

*

Next day, as he was getting ready for bed, he saw the ghost in the bathroom mirror.

“So are you a Rust or a Spence?”

The man walked out of the room and was gone.

Marty decided he looked more like a Rust.

 

*

Rust started to show himself more often after that. He’d walk around the place with his carved-in-stone expression, or have wall staring marathons while Marty prepared for work.

Marty sometimes talked at him, told him about his day or scolded him for moving shit around. Not that it made any difference.

 

*

Marty decided that living with a ghost was a bit like having a cat ―a particularly aloof cat in this case. Only he didn’t have to worry about food or cleaning a litterbox. That was always a plus.

 

*

“So, death’s all about lounging in your underwear reading philosophy books?” Mused Marty one Friday evening as he came in from mowing the lawn. He reached inside the refrigerator for a beer.

Rust was curled on the couch with one of the books from the box in the closet.

“Well, it’s not like life is all full of exciting stuff all the time,” said a low, sleepy voice with a Texan drawl.

“Holy fucking shit!” The beer shattered on the kitchen floor. “You can speak.”

“Of course I can,” Rust deadpanned with one of his unimpressed cat looks.

“Asshole, if you have a voice then why the fuck have we been playing charades for the last two months?”

“I figured you’d freak out,” said the ghost, and gave Marty a pointed look.

“You could have eased me into it; ‘Hi, I’m Rust, your own personal ghost. I’m probably somewhere in the small print of your lease.’”

“I am, right in the utilities clause.”

“Smartass.”

 

*

“Can you walk through walls?”

“Yep.”

“Let’s see it then.”

 

*

Marty stopped, hand on the doorknob. He was about to pick up the girls from the house. With every passing weekend his hopes of getting back with Maggie got smaller and smaller.

“Hey,” he called out. Rust was nowhere to be seen but Marty could tell he was around. “I’m gonna bring my daughters over, later. They’re gonna stay the night.” It would be their first time at the apartment. “Could you, I don’t know, keep the ectoplasmic fucking activity to a minimum? They’re little girls, I don’t want them to freak out. Don’t think they’ve seen enough episodes of Casper to deal with this.”

He felt like an asshole; this was Rust’s house too after all. He didn’t get an answer so he just got on his way, hoping everything would be alright.

Everything seemed normal when he came back with the girls. They ordered pizza for dinner and watched cartoons until ten. Marty tucked them into his bed and left the hall light on. He went down to crash on the couch and stayed awake as long as he could.

There wasn’t even a peep from Rust.

 

*

“Wait, where the fuck do you even get smokes in the goddamned afterlife?”

 

*

“Hey, Marty.”

“Sonofabitch! Really, Rust, we gotta invest in some fucking chains for you to rattle before entering a room. Or, you know, teach you to knock.”

 

*

Marty got served with divorce papers the last week of June. He felt like a weight had been dropped on his head, crushing but really unsurprising. Maggie had refused to accept any sort of apology, kept pushing him further away as the months went on. Still, he’d hoped.

When he came home Marty tossed the envelope on the kitchen counter and went straight for the bottle of scotch over the sink. He slumped on the couch, not bothering with a glass.

There was shuffling sound from the stairs; Rust was standing on the last step, peering at Marty with an expression like a wary puppy.

Marty let out a long sigh and patted the cushion next to him. “Hey buddy. I think I could really use some company tonight.”

 

*

Marty bought the book on a whim when he took the girls to the bookstore one Sunday morning: The Canterville Ghost. He had a vague memory of reading it in school. He left it on Rust’s ugly lawn chair and went to sleep.

When he got home from work next evening Rust was perched on one of the kitchen stools, reading and smoking.

“You like it?”

“ _Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace_.” He huffed. “Bullshit.”

“Well, at least I’m glad you don’t insist on bloodstains on the carpet. There’s no paint around, you’d probably use all the hot sauce.”

“This ghost is a moron.”

“Yeah, thank God for clever, nihilistic spirits.”

 

*

“Y’know, Rust,” Marty mumbled one morning as he padded into the kitchen to start on breakfast. “Since you can touch shit and all, it would be really appreciated if you started the coffee maker every once in a while.”

He heard a snort from somewhere next to the fridge.

“Just a suggestion.”

Two days later he woke up to the smell of freshly brewed coffee.

 

*

Marty woke up to a chill that had little to do with the winter drizzle that fell outside the window; Rust was sitting at the foot of his bed, staring at the murky night sky.

“Hey, is something wrong?” Marty was instantly alert, trying to hear if there was something out of the ordinary.

Rust shook his head. He seemed strange, grayish, less solid than usual.

Marty sat up. “Are you alright, Rust?” The ghost didn’t answer, just kept trying to find the stars behind the clouds. “You wanna talk about it?”

“I had a baby girl, Marty.” Rust said after a long time. “She was on her tricycle when― it was years back; she was two. Today’s her birthday.” His voice was low and flat, like he was reciting words written on the window glass.

“Do you want me to do something? Get her flowers or something?” Rust shook his head. Marty dared to ask what he was thinking. “Is she a―”

“She’s not here. She’s where she’s supposed to be; I can feel it. She’s just gone, that’s a good thing,” Rust’s voice faltered and stopped.

They’d never touched, Rust always kept his distance, but Marty moved closer and reached his hand to squeeze his shoulder. It was like seeing and thing with one eye, and empty space with the other, something and nothing at the same time; Rust’s skin was neither warm nor cold and Marty could feel the sharp lines of his bones beneath it even as he felt the air between his fingers.

“I’m so sorry, brother.”

They stayed up until the rain stopped.

*

 _‘Ask the father about the mugging last month’_ was written on the margin of his current case’s file in an unknown handwriting; Marty had the eerie certainty that it belonged to Rust.

They were gonna question the guy anyway so Marty decided to give it a shot. The guy confessed in less than thirty minutes.

*

It became an almost regular thing; Marty would open folders to find notes and drawings scribbled in margins and the back of papers: ‘ _Where’s the car?’, ‘The girlfriend is lying’, ‘Innocence is just a fiction humanity created to claim a moral high ground._ ’

 _‘He didn’t kill her but he’s certainly killed someone else. Look into it’_ was the latest message scrawled on a post-it next to the case file.

“Exactly on what are you basing this accusation?” asked Marty. Rust didn’t answer, just stared at him like Marty was a fucking moron. “I can’t just go into my major’s office and tell him we need to check this guy because my ghost partner thinks he’s shady. How the fuck do you even know he’s killed before? You part of the ghost network or some shit like that?”

“Yes,” Rust deadpanned. “I get the newsletter every week; top 5 screams of the month, new faces of the ghoul world. It’s all in his fucking statement, man; guy’s a creep. You need to ask the right questions in the box, Marty.”

“Yeah, smartass, remember if you weren’t such an idiot we could have done this in the flesh.”

“Do you think I don’t know that?”

*

Rust did leave a hot sauce stain on the floor after that one.

*

“So, can you make the walls bleed?”

“No.”

“Lame.”

“Yeah, well, fuck you, _you_ make them bleed.”

*

 

“Hey, Marty.”

“What?” Marty shot up, still half asleep. Rust was sitting on the bed, leaning over him. “What the hell, are we getting robbed?”

Rust pushed him down onto the mattress. “Just wanted to see if you were awake. Believe me, if anyone was stupid enough to break into our house I'd give them the whole Amityville Horror treatment.”

“Have you even watched the Amityville Horror, Rust?”

“You know what, nevermind, go back to sleep.” He stood up.

“You already woke me, you idiot, so talk.”

Rust huffed like an offended cat. “Nothing.”

Marty narrowed his eyes at him. “Can’t sleep? Hell, do you even sleep?”

“Sometimes. Don’t ask me how that works.”

“Get in.” Marty threw the covers back. Rust gave him a startled look; it made him seem sort of like a robot who’d received a command he didn’t know how to perform. “Come on, I ain’t gonna fucking bite.”

Rust got under the sheets, settled on his side.

“Can you get all invisible without disappearing?” asked Marty, studying the ghost’s outline over the comforter.

Rust blinked out of sight, the covers retaining his shape around seemingly empty air.

“Hell, that’s creepy,” giggled Marty. His friend appeared again. “So, you need me to tell you a bedtime story?”

“Marty, I’ve heard your bedtime stories; they’re shit.”

“You want a cuddle?”

Rust glared daggers at him. “I could get my hand through your chest and crush your heart with my fingers.”

Marty yawned. “You have the sweetest pillow talk, man.”

*

“Hey, Rust?”

They were watching some late night show, volume too low to actually hear the jokes.

“What?”

“Do you think I’ll become a ghost, you know, when I bite the big one? Does one require a dramatic death or is it based on personal achievement?”

Rust hummed, considering. “Nah, man. Don’t think you have enough self-awareness to become a ghost. I think you’ll go straight to the finish line; the soft brown earth and the silence, and all that shit.”

Marty was silent for a moment.

“Well, then I’ll make sure to drag you along on my way there.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Title based on the poem Antigonish by Hugh Mearns.
> 
> The ghost of Canterville was written, of course, by Oscar Wilde.


End file.
